Romance magazine 2018

WE’RE ALL THIEVES: A STEAMY PIRATE ROMANCE

BY DYRION KNIGHT He swaggers on deck as if his body isn’t bound in chains. As if the lifeless figures of his guards aren’t strewn around us, leaking blood onto my boots. He meets my eye, his grin crooked, brows raised as he takes me in: a woman. A pirate. I can practically hear the thoughts running through his mind. Lost little girl, playing in a man’s world. He glances over my shoulder as if expecting to find the true captain, not some female swathed in deep red; corset tight and ruffled skirt too short. Edmund and Charold flank him, yanking him back as he approaches me with misplaced confidence.

‘And here stands our plunder,’ I purr, striding closer, hands braced on my hips, barely an inch from my pistol and blade. Now it’s my turn to take him in. He isn’t the broad hulking type, but he’s stacked with rippling muscles that he flexes as he tries to pull free from the chains. His hair is as deep as night, matching the depthless dark of his eyes and his face could have been chiselled from marble—sharp angles and defined cheekbones, skin as pale as bone. A stark contrast to the mahogany shade of my own.

Crimson blood drips from his lower lip and sucking it up, he spits it at my feet.

They told me he was arrogant. I didn’t realise he was a fool as well. Jag Harver.

Runaway, ruffian, and revered. Respected for all the things he did as a squib on the streets—stealing, conning, anything to make ends meet—and now he’s practically worshipped for that little trinket burned into his chest, glinting beneath his torn open shirt. The Crest of Miracles.

It’s about the size of my palm, a pattern of loops and swirls. Its gold iridescent, 37